Register before 31 July and receive a coupon for $10 off a purchase of $25 or more at GSA's on-site bookstore.

LAST CALL for Abstracts11 August is this year's new, later, abstract submittal deadline. We hope to see your paper presented at the meeting — and those of your colleagues as well! Please note: All speakers must register for the meeting. [ submit an abstract | invite a colleague to submit an abstract ]

Poster Printing Service

Have your posters printed and ready for pick up at the meeting! Estimated cost for a 4-ft by 8-ft poster is $100.
[ learn more ]

GSA's Sections would like your technical session suggestions, field trip proposals, and short course ideas to help make your 2010 meetings the best ever!
GSA's Cordilleran Section has just posted a detailed call for proposals on their new site, with lots of contacts waiting for your ideas!
[ see Section schedule | who to contact ]

We've lined up 20 Short Courses for the annual meeting this year! Gain knowledge and experience, work on professional development goals, and earn continuing education credits. Let course instructors know you're interested when you sign up early!
[ learn more ]

Resources

USGS: Your resource during hurricane season

The USGS offers this "one-stop" hurricane Web site for access to important storm information such as flood levels, pictures of the coastline before and after the storm, and information on the timing, extent, and magnitude of storm tide.
[ learn more ]

GSA Members are building the future of the geosciences. We sincerely thank all of our members for making this a great Society! Check out the July issue of GSA Today at its new location on the GSA Web site for listings of our 2009 awardees, newly elected Fellows, new 50-year Fellows and Members, and GSA graduate student research grant recipients. Also see the Memorials page for tributes honoring deceased GSA members.

GSA Member Benefits Include Savings in Many Areas

Discounts on GSA publications and products;

Discounted meeting registration; and

GSA members may be eligible to save up to $3,300 on the purchase of a new Subaru through the Subaru VIP Program.

Memoir 204Backbone of the Americas: Shallow Subduction, Plateau Uplift, and Ridge and Terrane Collision
edited by Suzanne Mahlburg Kay, Víctor A. Rámos, and William R. Dickinson
Papers in this volume were selected from those presented at the 2006 Backbone of the Americas meeting in Mendoza, Argentina. Also developed for this meeting: Field Guide 13, Field Trip Guides to the Backbone of the Americas in the Southern and Central Andes: Ridge Collision, Shallow Subduction, and Plateau Uplift.

Special Paper 457Did Westward Subduction Cause Cretaceous-Tertiary Orogeny in the North American Cordillera?
by Robert S. Hildebrand
Hildebrand describes an iconoclastic model for the Cretaceous-Tertiary development of the Cordilleran orogen and offers a resolution to the long-standing Baja-BC controversy.

Government Affairs

Historic Vote on Energy and Climate Change Legislation

26 June: The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Waxman-Markey bill to establish a cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the first-ever passage of such a bill. Next, the Senate will consider its merits.[ learn more ]

House of Representatives Passes Budget Increases for Geoscience Agencies

The House passed appropriations bills to increase funding for key geoscience agencies in fiscal year 2010. NSF: up 6.9% to $6.9 billion; USGS: up 5.9% to $1.1 billion; NOAA: up 5.5% to $4.6 billion; and NASA: up 2.4% to $18.2 billion. These bills are now pending before the Senate.
[ learn more ]

Touchpoints

Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, USA.

A SAMPLING OF GSA IN THE NEWS

Jon Pelletier (GSA Today, July 2009) explores the hypothesis that up to 1.5 km of erosion in the intramontane basins of the southern Rocky Mountains was caused primarily by increased snowmelt flooding intensity. This article was covered by ScienceDaily and received mention on several blogs, including Hawaii Weather Today.
[ GSA Today article | ScienceDaily article ]

Figueiredo et al. (Geology, July 2009) use borehole samples to give the transcontinental Amazon River its first age estimate, that of about 11 million years old. Their research was covered in several blogs, ScienceDaily, PhysOrg.com, and by U.S. News & World Report.
[ abstract | U.S. News & World Report article ]

S.R. Allen and J. McPhie (Geology, July 2009) propose the term "neptunian" for sustained magmatic volatile-driven explosive eruptions from underwater vents at depths of ~1300–200 m, as well as for the products of these eruptions. Their article was covered by ScienceDaily and picked up by several blogs, including The Volcanism Blog.
[ abstract | The Volcanism Blog article ]

Quick et al. (Geology, July 2009) find evidence for a massive (greater than 13 km diameter) fossil caldera in an exposed section of continental crust comprising the Ivrea-Verbano Zone and Serie dei Laghi of northwest Italy. Their correlation of ages of volcanic and middle to deep crustal plutonic rocks, leading the team to infer an unprecedented exposure of a subcaldera magmatic plumbing system to a depth of 25 km, was reported in ScienceDaily.
[ abstract | ScienceDaily article ]

GSA Connection is a monthly e-publication of The Geological Society of America, containing news and items of interest to the geoscience community. This publication may contain links to sites on the Internet that are owned and operated by third parties. GSA is not responsible for the content of any such third-party site. GSA Connection may also contain advertising for science-related goods and services.